Sunday, August 30, 2009

Mangay is one of the babies who arrived with the Aketi 5 chimpanzees. When he arrived he showed some very abnormal behaviours such as laying on the ground and rotating his hands and he also was quite unresponsive and scared. These behaviours have slowly been decreasing, until last month when he only exhibited them when all the babies went into the dormitory to sleep. However, I am very happy to report that now the behaviours have stopped all together. Mangay seems like a different chimpanzee. He is happy, playful and well adjusted.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

The wonderful chimpanzee caregivers decided to put some branches up in the goma group cage as an enrichment activity today. As you can see in the next picture, the chimpanzees had a wonderful time with the new addition to the cage. It lasted only about 15 minutes before everything was on the ground again!

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Loia and Butembo were introduced to the nursery cage today. Both of the babies were a little scared at the beginning, but all in all it went very well. Of course all of the other babies are curious to meet the new additions and sometimes they can be a little rough. Mama Dorcas will remain in the cage with them during the days coming until they become accustomed to their new surroundings. At night the boys will sleep in the cage inside the house as they have been for the past month. I am sure within no time, they will be happy with their new friends.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

We would like to thank Cathy Hancock for raising 118 dollars for CRPL. She celebrated her birthday in June, and asked everyone that came to her birthday party to make a donation for Lwiro instead of bringing her a birthday present! Great initiativ! Thank you so much! You are a star!

Also a big thank you for Christine G. for donating 50 dollars here on the blog!

All donations are really apreciated, and it really does make a difference!

Monday, August 10, 2009

On Sunday the 2nd of August the ICCN arrived with a new Red-tailed Monkey. This monkey is a very small male – only 6 months to a year old. We have put him in the cage with Nunuse (the baby Owl-faced monkey) so that they both have some company. They are doing well together. His name is ‘Coco Kalonge’, as he was confiscated in Kalonge. But Coco will be his daily name, as we already have a baboon called Kalonge!Andrea

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Friday, August 7, 2009

On Saturday the 1st of August I was in Bukavu at the head office of Coopera (the managing NGO for the CRPL). I was driving along the road with two other staff members when we saw a baboon in a tree in one of the houses. We got out of the car to get a closer look at the monkey and we realized she was tied to a tree. She had no water or food at that point in time, but she looked like she was in good condition. We followed the protocols and called the ICCN (Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature) so that they could follow up on the confiscation.Within a few hours all of the paperwork was in order and the park ranger went to confiscate the baboon. I accompanied them to show them where the baboon was. The people in the house allowed us into the yard where the baboon was being kept so that we could discuss the issue. The park ranger was extremely professional and calm with the people and explained that it is illegal to have a pet primate. The people asked if we could wait and talk to the owner of the monkey, so we remained at the house for about an hour. In this time, both I and the ranger groomed the little female Olive Baboon, she is about 3 years old. She was very gentile and seemed to enjoy the interaction. The cord around her waist was attached to the tree. She only has about a meter of leeway to move around. The owner did not show up to the house, and eventually the people there agreed that we could take the baboon. She was transported to the office of the ICCN where she stayed for two nights before she was transported to the CRPL.Upon arrival to the CRPL Bavo (the name of the baboon) was put into the cage with Kalonge (a male Olive Baboon about 4 years old) and an adult female Yellow Baboon, Brandy. Unfortunately, we have extremely limited space at the sanctuary and therefore had nowhere suitable to quarantine Bavo. Therefore the cage she is in is now in quarantine. We do hope that when we are able to finish the forest exhibit and move most of the chimpanzees there, that we will have better facilities and more space for the monkey residents and also more room for quarantine. As it is the sanctuary is overfull, but while we can provide food and medical care to these animals we will continue to accept them as there is nowhere else for them to go. If you would like to help us please donate through this blog. Every donation can help us reach our goal faster.Andrea

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

There have been two new Owl-faced monkeys born in the sanctuary in the last year. Breeding is not something we actively do in the sanctuary; in fact we would much prefer it never happened. However, our funds to use contraception are very limited and out facilities are also limited. This makes keeping males and females separate impossible. So we use the contraceptive implants we can afford for the chimpanzees and larger monkeys. These two little monkeys are both female and the youngest; Manjano which means yellow in Swahili, has a very peculiar yellow tinge to her coat. The older of the two is called Hanja which means brown. HanjaManjano